Tuesday, 7 August 2012

Brassens deplores the fact that spontaneous gestures of friendliness
and goodwill that were quite normal in the past are increasingly seen as
suspect and are even being proscribed by the contemporary social code. He describes the hostile
reactions to the offer of a flower in admiration of a passing girl, the offer
to share drinks with a group of strangers, the suggestion of reconciliation
from outside to warring parties.Modern developments, such as the imposition of
political correctness, have shown how right Brassens was in his perception of
this trend.The interactive relations of
individuals have now become fraught with fabricated complications that make us
more and more tentative in our dealings with each other.

LA ROSE, LA BOUTEILLE ET LA POIGNÉE
DE MAIN (1)
The rose, the bottle and the handshake

And I went on my way and I set out to find Perchance a bodice which
the flower could adorn.

For it is one of the worst perversions that be To hold on to a rose
just for yourself alone.

The first girl I offered it to

Looked away contemptuously,

The second one takes flight and runs

While she is still screaming for help

If the third swiped me on the nose

With a swing of her umbrella

The fourth one, that was nastier,

She went to look for the police.

For, nowadays it’s ludicrous

Without being a weirdo, you can’t

Give flow’rs to beautiful strangers.

We have fallen so low, so low….

And that poor little rosebud

Got to adorn the coat lapel

Of some vile police inspector

What a disgrace!

That bottle had fallen out of

The cassock of the local priest

Coming from mass, drunk as a lord.

With a bottle of vintage wine

Good, consecrated, and holy,

I picked it up without remorse.

And I went on my way seeking, full of high hopes
A worthy dry gullet to help me to drink it. For it is one of the worst
perversions that be To hang on to consecrated wine for oneself.

The first man turned down the glass I offered,

Giving me a very stern look

The second told me jokingly

To go, sober up somewhere else,

If the third man, right there and then

Threw the nectar back in my face

The fourth one, that was nastier,

He went to look for the police.

For, nowadays it’s ludicrous

Without being a weirdo, you can’t

Share a round of drinks with strangers,

We have fallen so low, so low.

It was with the bottle of wine

Vintage, consecrated, holy,

The cops got to wet their whistle

A real scandal!

That poor little shake of the hand

Lay on the roadside, forgotten

By two friends who had fallen out.

It looked somewhat disconcerted

it was left there down in the ditch

I picked it up without remorse.

And I went back on my way with the intention

To get the human gesture recirculating

For it is one of the worst perversions that be To hang on to a shake of
the hand for oneself.

The first man told me to “Clear off !

I’d be scared of soiling my
gloves”

The second piously tipped me

One hundred sous, fake moreover.

If the third one, an uncouth oaf,

Spat into the hand I proffered,

The fourth one, that was nastier,
Went to look for the police.

For, nowadays it’s ludicrous

Without being a weirdo, you can’t

Shake hands with those you don’t know,

We have fallen so low, so low.

And the poor shake of the hand

Victim of an inhuman fate

Went to finish its career

Impounded by law.

TRANSLATION NOTES

1)La
Rose, la Bouteille et la Poignée de Main : Brassens was consciously
writing this poem in the style of La Fontaine (1621 -1695), whose book of
fables, a present to Brassens from Jeanne, was among his favourite bedside
reading. La Fontaine’s usual practice
was to list in the title of his poems the elements of the story on which the
moral would be based: e.g. La Mort et le Bûcheron – La Laitière et le Pot au
lait. Brassens composes his title in the
ame style

2)Usages
of fleurir, the transitive verb –1) Fleurir quelque chose + is to put flowers
on something –in our poem a man’s jacket and a woman’s blouse. It is also used for putting flowers on a tomb
etc. 2) Fleurir quelqu’un = offer a flower to some-one. (My Collins Robert translates the command
“Fleurissez-vous!” as: “Get yourself
some flowers” – “get yourself a buttonhole”.

3)Quelle
misère! As a longstanding French teacher
I find myself commenting that “misère” is a false friend looking like “misery”
in English, but, in fact meaning "abject poverty". However, both ideas are so close they can
merge in a general idea of degradation.

4)Ils
se sont rincé la dalle – A common French
idiom – Although the most common meaning of “dalle” is paving slab, it also
means throat, as here.

5)Deux
amis fâchés à mort- the idiom talks of lifelong anger.

6)Ours
mal léché – literally a bear that has not licked its coat properly is a popular
image for an unkempt oaf.

7)Une
fourrière - a pound, in the sense of a
place where stray animals are confined or the enclosed area where abandoned or
stolen vehicles are kept after being impounded by the police.

POSTSCRIPT

In the comments that follow the above video of this song on You Tube, a Frenchman, calling himself “Lawlikoo”, expressed the meaning of the
song with what he saw as the advantage of a chemically enhanced perspicacity.At all events, the blogger, was asserting his defiant
individuality and love of life, in a way that Brassens would have most
certainly approved of. This is what he wrote:

Pierre Schuler on his authoritative Brassens
blogsite, “Auprès de son arbre” recommands the following Russian version of
this song by the Russian singer Alexandre Avanessov. His transposition of the style of Brassens and
his performance of his music is very admirable.The cartoon drawings that accompany the song are clever and exact.